Madoff Investors Fail in Bid to Void Norman Levy Settlement

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Investors in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi
scheme failed to show that a trustee’s $220 million settlement
with the heirs of customer Norman Levy should be voided, a
federal appeals court said, affirming a lower court ruling.

The investors argued that the settlement didn’t take into
account $100 billion in transactions between Levy and Madoff’s
firm, which they alleged helped to finance the Ponzi scheme. In
a ruling today, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan found
that the transfers “could not have altered the possible
exposure to liability of the Levy heirs.”

Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Madoff’s firm,
settled with Levy’s family and estate in 2010 for $220 million,
the amount of their alleged profits from the scheme. Levy, a
close associate of Madoff, died in 2005 at age 93.

A lawyer for the investors, Helen Davis Chaitman, didn’t
immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the ruling.

The case is Peshkin v. Levy-Church, 12-816, U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit (Manhattan).